Wetsuit Tech
The latest wetsuit technology all in one place.
Love them or hate them, booties are like the necessary evil when it comes to year-round surfing in New Zealand. Solite reckons its Custom 3mm heat-moldable booties have taken winter surfing to a whole new level. We bought a pair to find our for ourselves. But before we get into......
Born of New Zealand, Coastlines Wetsuits, officially pulled up a chair at the global rubber buffet when they launched just a few short months ago. NZSJ discovered they have some heavy hitters on their team and their heart’s in the right place. A few months before the brand launched, former......
The Covid-19 health crisis has taught New Zealanders a lot of things, but nothing has become clearer: we need to support local surf businesses. By supporting them we pump the vascular system of our very own New Zealand surf industry. And that reaches deep into the heart of our surf......
Lying on a table in Seventhwave’s Ferrymead factory in Christchurch is a fluffy orange wetsuit that doesn’t look anything like the wetsuit manufacturer’s flagship Yamamoto suits. Sarah smiles, she lifts the wetsuit up and explains the prototype to me. “I haven’t surfed in this one yet,” she admits with a......
At the start of 2019 Rip Curl launched an all-new wetsuit aimed straight at the top end of the market and billed to incorporate technology that would change the wetsuit game forever. We got our hands on a Flashbomb Heat Seeker 4:3 and thrashed it to death. Here’s what we......
We were blown away by the value for money with our Need Essentials steamer produced by a company that prides itself on stripping away the costs of traditional surf wetsuit production. By minimising packaging, branding, expensive advertising campaigns and retail markups, Need Essentials is able to deliver a high-end adult......
O’Neill has turned the technology dial right up with the material used in its Hyperfreak range and if this zip less 4:3 suit is anything to go by then they’re on to something. We’ve thrash tested ours for more than two years now. This is what we discovered … When......
Some of the design elements of the Quiksilver Highline Plus 2mm hood have tackled the biggest issues most surfers have with pulling on a hood for winter. These features stand the Highline Plus hood head-and shoulders above conventional hoods. In our experience, most of the hoods out there only do......
When it comes to the New Zealand surf industry there are very few long-lived brands and manufacturers beyond our cornerstone surfboard shapers. So it was a real privilege to meet Paul Zarifeh and his team at the Seventhwave Wetsuits factory in Christchurch back in the depths of winter in 2015.......